In Kate's own words: "I already had the piano patterns, but they didn't turn into a song until the night after I'd been to see a Stevie Wonder gig. Inspired by the feeling of his music, I set a rhythm on the Roland and worked in the piano riff to the high-hat and snare.... 'Sat In Your Lap' is very much a search for knowledge. And about the kind of people who really want to have knowledge but can't be bothered to do the things that they should in order to get it. So they're sitting there saying how nice it would be to have this or to do that without really desiring to do the things it takes you to get it. And also the more you learn the more ignorant you realize you are and that you get over one wall to find an even bigger one." Kate Bush Encyclopedia. Kate explains the costumes from "Sat In Your Lap" on this video when she was interviewed on a kids show: th-cam.com/video/b7KVdwYSX6A/w-d-xo.html
I'd say it's more about people too lazy to do what's necessary to learn, but Kate implies that knowledge and success are somehow equated. I think it says more about Kate herself, someone hugely motivated to train and learn, and who achieved success, or her idea of success, through knowledge
i'm glad that was cleared up. i wasn't 100% sure either (poc from NZ) but i just know Kate isn't that person! Her heavily exoerimental album The Dreaming is written in plight of the destruction of Aboriginal homelands, & one of her big hero's is Billy Holiday. You should (watch, definitely) react to Eat The Music. the video is gorgeous, vibrant. She's always been open to all kinds of spirituality, & this vid has def nods to a trad roots/voodou flavour. it's lush :-)
D is for Dunce. Back in the day, teachers would make dumb kids where the "Dunce Cap". This song is about education and those who have access to it but don't take advantage of it.
I took the song to be about seeking knowledge/getting wiser. The dunce cap representing how she/we feel stupid also it represents the fact that the wiser we get we realise how much there is still to learn/how little we know, it's in the lyrics too; "Just when I Think I'm king..." The "gimme gimme" is a desire to be wiser. The comment that we want knowledge with out working for it also fits/is part of the meaning of the song. Actually I just noticed that someone posted below and explained it all far better than myself.
The Dreaming is 100% Kate's "baby". Not a small feat for a woman in the '80s. Didn't get as high critical acclaim, but this is the album that grabbed me first. So good. Another one that's great to listen to w/o any video, just make your own images first. So fun!
The pan characters are metaphors for undisciplined impulse. The clowns are harlequins, which represent topsy turvey.. or duplicitness... opposites switching...and mocking. The white caps are dunce caps with scholar robes... the ballerina outfit is a metaphor for society cultural eliteness. Fun song.
Interestingly, the song Suspended in Gaffa reflects a similar ethic in Kate. These are, I am told, her words on Suspended in Gaffa: "The idea of the song is that of being given a glimpse of 'God' - something that we dearly want - but being told that unless we work for it, we will never see it again, and even then, we might not be worthy of it. Of course, everybody wants the reward without the toil, so people try to find a way out of the hard work, still hoping to claim the prize, but such is not the case. The choruses are meant to express the feeling of entering timelessness as you become ready for the experience, but only when you are ready"
It's about her search for knowledge, and how it doesn't come quickly, you have to work for it, and study for it. As people have already noted, the Dunce caps show that she has so much more to learn, and at the end, when she starts through out names of scholars, she is pursuing that knowledge and enlightenment, but she can't take shortcuts. You have to work for it. Knowledge doesn't just sit in your lap, you have to seek it and learn it.
Been a Kate Bush fan for decades, and I love this song and the crazy video. But first time I saw it, (and still when I see it today), I thought 'it looks like Kate is rollerskating with Klansmen'. I get the dunce cap reference, but can see why people from America, or anybody a generation younger than I would be weirded out by this
It is such a weird video indeed. Obviously the British meaning behind those white hooded/capped figures has nothing to do with the American meaning, and that is unfortunate. This was the very first song I ever heard from her and quite a slap of intense inspiration for so many years. Even now, 41 years later, I listen to the album and it still seems pure, exciting and masterful. Many other albums I listened to at the time now seem dated or quaint. Not this marvelous creation. Btw, you have such great taste and I really enjoy your open-minded reaction videos. Btw, I think her best video is one she made for Army Dreamers. This one feels kind of cheap, as it seems to have been shot in a small dance rehearsal space! Still, the ideas, costumes and choreography are amazing as usual.
And now InAVeeCoop has hit the jackpot - the album The Dreaming. And if one really needed to be reductionist, if there's one song that represents Kate Bush at her absolute zenith, it would be THIS. (Or maybe I'm just saying that because, back in the days when jukeboxes existed, this was the KB song I was most likely to play)
Oh, and can I suggest you give some Joni Mitchell a listen? sure you'd love her too. Coyote would be a good song to try first maybe. Or anything off her Blue album. I'm not sure why I enjoy these reaction videos so much, but I do, you've become one of my favourites. Hope you keep growing! PS Just checked and there's a recording Joni preforming Blue live. its uploaded by camonboard1. Not watched it myself, but its probably amazing.
It's about the quest for God and spiritual power. As soon as you think you are King you become the Devil,so to speak, hence the Satyr heads which are as significant as the dunce cones.Comming up the ladder is the Kabbalistic journey. Clowns are jesters, fools for God! So in short she wants to be King but she is grasping so can't ascend the ladder. Give her the cup of wisdom!
believe it or not years and years ago teachers would make kids wear a"dunce cap" in front of other students if they were lazin in class or got an answer wrong. I think all the characters are symbolic of someone's daydreaming when they're supposed to be studying,, the song is about wanted wisdom without working for it.
Yeah, the cones are dunce caps, as others have said. There would have been no other, more CHARGED interpretation in the UK back then. Anything Klanish would have been something weird and unsettling and American. Not that they didn’t have racism in England, but this sort of iconography would have evoked pénitentes in Spain before anything else.
Hi InAVee Coop, I've remembered a Kate Bush visual classic that's here on TH-cam, if you type in the TH-cam search engine "The Line, The Cross and The Curve" ( I tried copying and pasting it to you but couldn't ) You'll find Kate Bush's visual interpretation of her album "The Red Shoes", she loved the film of the same name and wanted to do a concept album and video to honour it, ( although apparently I remember reading at the time she hated her video interpretation). I know you love her ballads so you need to listen to "Moments of Pleasure" at 24:34, I lost my partner to cancer 7 years ago, my dad 3 years ago and my mum last November so this piece always makes me cry because it brings them back to me. watch
The figures in the video are the major arcana of the tarot cards, the fool, the magicians, and the devil. BUT the magicians wearing those Dunce cap bore an unfortunate resemblance to the KKK. The song is about frustration in the pursuit of knowledge, esoteric and spiritual knowledge is a very special KIND, a difficult path. The pointed hats are Dunce caps, in British schools it was common to punish students by making them wear a dunce cap and sit separate from the class...( what a horrible way to reprimand a kid, ) BUT I think the white cloaks and Dunce caps were an inappropriate choice on Kate's part. At least if the robes were blue or gold, it wouldn't have looked so much like what it looks like. In the Tarot card deck, card 0 is the fool or joker, , bumbling along he is usually carrying a sack that has all the ingredients of the universe within it, but he is oblivious. The next card is card # 1, The magician/ jugglers. THIS is the same being but now in accord with the cosmos, dancing and juggling effortlessly. So , zero is the empty, frustrated, naive fool, an absence. But the magician, card # one, is the person full and unified. The minataurs are an image of the devil card which expresses being stubborn and resolute, "bull-headed" literally, Lol... So ALL of these characters are different aspects of our self inside of us. Towards the finale, they all seem to be dancing together in a more unified way, Her references to "just when I think I am King, I just begin..." This is a direct reference to the intellectual centre within a person, expressed in playing card suites as well. She is saying "just when I think I have mastered Myself, I just begin....my favorite line I WANT TO BE A LAWYER I WANT TO BE A SCHOLAR BUT I REALLY CAN'T BE BOTHERED OOO JUST GIMME IT, GIMME IT GIMME IT, GIMME GIMME GIMME!! Knowledge is a beeeitch.... I am sure Kate regrets the choice Of the white cloaks and dunce caps for the dancing magicians, she must have realized afterwards how wrong that creative choice was and how easy it is to get the wrong Message. Although the Dunce caps would suggest that they are actually IDIOTS, Lol...but that is not the message of the song, I can really relate to this theme, It seems as though there is something very inadequate about the methods of teaching and learning in modern society. Just memorize and regurgitate data on command. No wonder there are so many fools, and so few leaders...
And this post just goes to show how much there is to learn. I had no knowledge of the Tarot imagery, though I did pick up the minatour bull headed metaphor. I guess I was thinking more of Greek mythology. It's amazing how much some people know and I know so little.
In the. Middle ages a heretic about to be burned the stake would be dressed in such a white costume. Also some similarity to Dervish trance dancers and she has said she used to discus Gurdieff (who led such a dance troop), with her father
Everyone else has it covered. But getting out of your own way, and allowing yourself to develop is another thread running through all her music. Rolling the ball, rubber band girl, suspended in Gaffer and I'm sure many others. bit tired and can't think of them all right now. I wonder if the white customs might relate to whirling dervishes, to emphasis the similarity in theme to Rolling the ball? That's what makes her such a great artist, so many levels of interpretation, intended or not, its all there.
It’s about the search for knowledge and wisdom by Dunces/Dumb people... as she questions her own intellectual capacity and intention in seeking knowledge and wisdom! Kinda like the British version of KRS ONE! 🧐
Those caps are to shame lazy studentes....in germany if you finished you kindergarten successfully you will get a dunce cap full with candy and toys some old tradition....they dont do this anymore! If you are bad then a cap on your head....and if your good one full with candy and toys.
In Kate's own words: "I already had the piano patterns, but they didn't turn into a song until the night after I'd been to see a Stevie Wonder gig. Inspired by the feeling of his music, I set a rhythm on the Roland and worked in the piano riff to the high-hat and snare.... 'Sat In Your Lap' is very much a search for knowledge. And about the kind of people who really want to have knowledge but can't be bothered to do the things that they should in order to get it. So they're sitting there saying how nice it would be to have this or to do that without really desiring to do the things it takes you to get it. And also the more you learn the more ignorant you realize you are and that you get over one wall to find an even bigger one." Kate Bush Encyclopedia. Kate explains the costumes from "Sat In Your Lap" on this video when she was interviewed on a kids show: th-cam.com/video/b7KVdwYSX6A/w-d-xo.html
This album The Dreaming is very experimental. Suspended in Gaffa is my favourite from it
Suspended in gaffa reminds me of adolescence and I can’t sing it without crying :)
Mine too!
Omg! I love Suspended in Gaffa.
The song is about the desire for knowledge without having to work for it.... the cones are dunce caps
Like some of the youths of today, everything on a plate, please.
@@glenn20081965 ain't that the truth!!!
yes!!!
I'd say it's more about people too lazy to do what's necessary to learn, but Kate implies that knowledge and success are somehow equated. I think it says more about Kate herself, someone hugely motivated to train and learn, and who achieved success, or her idea of success, through knowledge
Grey and white matter ..I love her wording for the brain.. love that you're doing some of her more elusive songs. .
Yes...! I have to meet her.
i'm glad that was cleared up. i wasn't 100% sure either (poc from NZ) but i just know Kate isn't that person! Her heavily exoerimental album The Dreaming is written in plight of the destruction of Aboriginal homelands, & one of her big hero's is Billy Holiday. You should (watch, definitely) react to Eat The Music. the video is gorgeous, vibrant. She's always been open to all kinds of spirituality, & this vid has def nods to a trad roots/voodou flavour. it's lush :-)
D is for Dunce. Back in the day, teachers would make dumb kids where the "Dunce Cap". This song is about education and those who have access to it but don't take advantage of it.
Wear.You get a cap.
@@pflynn581 Touche'
I took the song to be about seeking knowledge/getting wiser. The dunce cap representing how she/we feel stupid also it represents the fact that the wiser we get we realise how much there is still to learn/how little we know, it's in the lyrics too; "Just when I Think I'm king..." The "gimme gimme" is a desire to be wiser. The comment that we want knowledge with out working for it also fits/is part of the meaning of the song. Actually I just noticed that someone posted below and explained it all far better than myself.
The Dreaming is 100% Kate's "baby". Not a small feat for a woman in the '80s. Didn't get as high critical acclaim, but this is the album that grabbed me first. So good. Another one that's great to listen to w/o any video, just make your own images first. So fun!
Thank you for the insight
It's her best album,it's so deep!
The pan characters are metaphors for undisciplined impulse. The clowns are harlequins, which represent topsy turvey.. or duplicitness... opposites switching...and mocking. The white caps are dunce caps with scholar robes... the ballerina outfit is a metaphor for society cultural eliteness.
Fun song.
Still my favourite Kate Bush album, followed close by Hounds of Love. It's like she fully same into her powers in *The Dreaming*.
The Dreaming is the best album ever! Not just her catalogue, for me it is my favorite album.
I totally agree with both of you. This really is an epic (if challenging) masterpiece.
Interestingly, the song Suspended in Gaffa reflects a similar ethic in Kate. These are, I am told, her words on Suspended in Gaffa: "The idea of the song is that of being given a glimpse of 'God' - something that we dearly want - but being told that unless we work for it, we will never see it again, and even then, we might not be worthy of it. Of course, everybody wants the reward without the toil, so people try to find a way out of the hard work, still hoping to claim the prize, but such is not the case. The choruses are meant to express the feeling of entering timelessness as you become ready for the experience, but only when you are ready"
It's about her search for knowledge, and how it doesn't come quickly, you have to work for it, and study for it. As people have already noted, the Dunce caps show that she has so much more to learn, and at the end, when she starts through out names of scholars, she is pursuing that knowledge and enlightenment, but she can't take shortcuts. You have to work for it. Knowledge doesn't just sit in your lap, you have to seek it and learn it.
Been a Kate Bush fan for decades, and I love this song and the crazy video. But first time I saw it, (and still when I see it today), I thought 'it looks like Kate is rollerskating with Klansmen'. I get the dunce cap reference, but can see why people from America, or anybody a generation younger than I would be weirded out by this
Such a radical song! Love it!
Thank you Cynthia
Kate had some Lene Lovich and Nina Hagan going on during the early days.
Had never noticed this until now.
I think you are absolutely fabulous ..love how real you are an so lovely with it thanku love an God bless x
Thank you Wendy. I have to be.
@@InAVeeCoop you,are truly wonderful x
It is such a weird video indeed. Obviously the British meaning behind those white hooded/capped figures has nothing to do with the American meaning, and that is unfortunate. This was the very first song I ever heard from her and quite a slap of intense inspiration for so many years. Even now, 41 years later, I listen to the album and it still seems pure, exciting and masterful. Many other albums I listened to at the time now seem dated or quaint. Not this marvelous creation. Btw, you have such great taste and I really enjoy your open-minded reaction videos. Btw, I think her best video is one she made for Army Dreamers. This one feels kind of cheap, as it seems to have been shot in a small dance rehearsal space! Still, the ideas, costumes and choreography are amazing as usual.
Love and Anger is a song you need to hear
I used to listen to this when I was at uni 😂 "Just gimme a grade, gimme it, gimme gimme gimme gimme"
And now InAVeeCoop has hit the jackpot - the album The Dreaming.
And if one really needed to be reductionist, if there's one song that represents Kate Bush at her absolute zenith, it would be THIS.
(Or maybe I'm just saying that because, back in the days when jukeboxes existed, this was the KB song I was most likely to play)
Oh, and can I suggest you give some Joni Mitchell a listen? sure you'd love her too. Coyote would be a good song to try first maybe. Or anything off her Blue album. I'm not sure why I enjoy these reaction videos so much, but I do, you've become one of my favourites. Hope you keep growing!
PS Just checked and there's a recording Joni preforming Blue live. its uploaded by camonboard1. Not watched it myself, but its probably amazing.
It's about the quest for God and spiritual power. As soon as you think you are King you become the Devil,so to speak, hence the Satyr heads which are as significant as the dunce cones.Comming up the ladder is the Kabbalistic journey. Clowns are jesters, fools for God! So in short she wants to be King but she is grasping so can't ascend the ladder. Give her the cup of wisdom!
believe it or not years and years ago teachers would make kids wear a"dunce cap" in front of other students if they were lazin in class or got an answer wrong. I think all the characters are symbolic of someone's daydreaming when they're supposed to be studying,, the song is about wanted wisdom without working for it.
Was that the first KB song...cuz that’s a helluva place to start. By the way...the whole album is weird and grows on you. I love Houdini...
I request you watch the video of her playing , "under the ivy" live at the piano
it has been uploaded
Love that song & it's my husbands fave of hers :-)
Just about learning, as she did through her life. Other peeps explain more, like the lyrics.
Got ya
Yeah, the cones are dunce caps, as others have said. There would have been no other, more CHARGED interpretation in the UK back then. Anything Klanish would have been something weird and unsettling and American. Not that they didn’t have racism in England, but this sort of iconography would have evoked pénitentes in Spain before anything else.
Hi InAVee Coop, I've remembered a Kate Bush visual classic that's here on TH-cam, if you type in the TH-cam search engine "The Line, The Cross and The Curve" ( I tried copying and pasting it to you but couldn't ) You'll find Kate Bush's visual interpretation of her album "The Red Shoes", she loved the film of the same name and wanted to do a concept album and video to honour it, ( although apparently I remember reading at the time she hated her video interpretation). I know you love her ballads so you need to listen to "Moments of Pleasure" at 24:34, I lost my partner to cancer 7 years ago, my dad 3 years ago and my mum last November so this piece always makes me cry because it brings them back to me. watch
No joke this is the one song I do not like. BUT come on one song??? The woman is fenominal!!! The video is a trip.
The figures in the video are the major arcana of the tarot cards, the fool, the magicians, and the devil.
BUT the magicians wearing those Dunce cap bore an unfortunate resemblance to the KKK. The song is about frustration in the pursuit of knowledge, esoteric and spiritual knowledge is a very special KIND, a difficult path.
The pointed hats are Dunce caps, in British schools it was common to punish students by making them wear a dunce cap and sit separate from the class...( what a horrible way to reprimand a kid, ) BUT I think the white cloaks and Dunce caps were an inappropriate choice on Kate's part. At least if the robes were blue or gold, it wouldn't have looked so much like what it looks like.
In the Tarot card deck, card 0 is the fool or joker, , bumbling along he is usually carrying a sack that has all the ingredients of the universe within it, but he is oblivious. The next card is card # 1, The magician/ jugglers. THIS is the same being but now in accord with the cosmos, dancing and juggling effortlessly. So , zero is the empty, frustrated, naive fool, an absence. But the magician, card # one, is the person full and unified. The minataurs are an image of the devil card which expresses being stubborn and resolute, "bull-headed" literally, Lol...
So ALL of these characters are different aspects of our self inside of us. Towards the finale, they all seem to be dancing together in a more unified way, Her references to "just when I think I am King, I just begin..." This is a direct reference to the intellectual centre within a person, expressed in playing card suites as well. She is saying "just when I think I have mastered
Myself, I just begin....my favorite line
I WANT TO BE A LAWYER
I WANT TO BE A SCHOLAR
BUT I REALLY CAN'T BE BOTHERED
OOO JUST GIMME IT, GIMME IT
GIMME IT, GIMME GIMME GIMME!!
Knowledge is a beeeitch....
I am sure Kate regrets the choice
Of the white cloaks and dunce caps for the dancing magicians, she must have realized afterwards how wrong that creative choice was
and how easy it is to get the wrong
Message. Although the Dunce caps would suggest that they are actually IDIOTS, Lol...but that is not the message of the song, I can really relate to this theme, It seems as though there is something very inadequate about the methods of teaching and learning in modern society. Just memorize and regurgitate data on command.
No wonder there are so many fools, and so few leaders...
Thank you for getting to the point in a thorough manner. This explains my thought process and also gives me knowledge where I lacked.
And this post just goes to show how much there is to learn. I had no knowledge of the Tarot imagery, though I did pick up the minatour bull headed metaphor. I guess I was thinking more of Greek mythology. It's amazing how much some people know and I know so little.
In the. Middle ages a heretic about to be burned the stake would be dressed in such a white costume. Also some similarity to Dervish trance dancers and she has said she used to discus Gurdieff (who led such a dance troop), with her father
Everyone else has it covered. But getting out of your own way, and allowing yourself to develop is another thread running through all her music. Rolling the ball, rubber band girl, suspended in Gaffer and I'm sure many others. bit tired and can't think of them all right now. I wonder if the white customs might relate to whirling dervishes, to emphasis the similarity in theme to Rolling the ball?
That's what makes her such a great artist, so many levels of interpretation, intended or not, its all there.
yes...! I'm so glad I stuck to the journey of getting to know her more through her music. and the fact that there is no end... ahhhh
These cones are what a teacher would put on a pupils head and make them stand in a corner with the letter d on it which meant dunce.
The grey and white matter is her brain.
Dunce caps were used in classrooms in England to ridicule school children
Strange... I replied to your reaction video to explain what you questioned yourself about the costumes used in this video and my comment disapeared...
Let me see if I can find it.
@@InAVeeCoop Well, I'll try again if you can't find it.
Dunce caps. Nothing racist.
Thank you for clarifying
InAVee Coop you’re welcome sweetheart. I absolutely love your videos!! I’m a huge Kate Bush fan anyway and you are a joy!
Dunce
It’s about the search for knowledge and wisdom by Dunces/Dumb people... as she questions her own intellectual capacity and intention in seeking knowledge and wisdom! Kinda like the British version of KRS ONE! 🧐
Those caps are to shame lazy studentes....in germany if you finished you kindergarten successfully you will get a dunce cap full with candy and toys some old tradition....they dont do this anymore!
If you are bad then a cap on your head....and if your good one full with candy and toys.
Dunce